1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable cellular phone having a function to display image data, a method and a program for displaying image data in the portable cellular phone and a storage medium storing a same program.
The present application claims priority of Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-024529 filed on Feb. 1, 2000, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various conventional portable cellular phones having a function to display image data have been disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Nos. Hei 9-006508, Hei 10-304429 or a like. In a case of image displaying functions of the conventional portable cellular phones, since display data to be displayed (hereinafter called xe2x80x9cdisplay dataxe2x80x9d) is made up of single image information, the conventional portable cellular phone cannot understand what kind of processing should be carried out to display image data with the display data only. Therefore, to display the image data on a screen of the conventional portable cellular phone, a method is employed in which a displaying operation is defined, in advance, by software to be used for performing various operations and image information data that matches a specified operation is read and displayed individually from memory by designating its registered location. Moreover, a position where the image data is displayed on a display device of the conventional portable cellular phone is determined by operation processing software constructed in a fixed manner so that a determined position for displaying is assigned for each piece of the image data to be displayed at each time of displaying. As a result, in the conventional portable cellular phone, a screenful of data has to be prepared to cover an entire screen area required for displaying the image data. Moreover, when a moving image is to be displayed, even if the moving image is displayed only on a part of the whole screen of the display device of the conventional portable cellular phone, the screenful of data has to be totally prepared, that is, more memory than is needed is used.
Thus, the image displaying function implemented in the software of the conventional portable cellular phone has problems in that, since contents of displaying operations are predetermined in a fixed manner for each of the conventional portable cellular phones by the software, the image displaying function has no flexibility and in that the image data to be displayed in the conventional portable cellular phone cannot be made shareable among conventional portable cellular phones. Moreover, even when the moving image is displayed on a part of the screen of the display device of the conventional portable cellular phone, a screenful of data is required irrespective of whether such amounts of data are needed or not, thus causing an increase in amounts of memory to be required for display operations. In addition, in the conventional portable cellular phone, since time for which one screen is being displayed and numbers of times of repeating displaying operations are predetermined in a fixed manner by the software, when the display data is to be registered from outside the conventional cellular phone, new image processing software that can meet these fixed conditions is required, thus causing a decrease in flexibility in displaying functions of the conventional cellular phone.
In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a portable cellular phone, a method and a program for displaying image data in the portable cellular phone and a storage medium storing a same program, which enables software for performing operations of displaying the image data to have much flexibility, which enables the image data to be made shareable among other portable phones, and which enables amounts of memory to be reduced even when a moving image is to be displayed.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a portable cellular phone, a method and a program for displaying image data in the portable cellular phone and a storage medium storing a same program, which is capable of flexibly setting time for which one screen of the image data is being displayed and number of times of repeating displaying operations, and a storage medium storing a program of the above method for displaying the image data.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a portable cellular phone including:
a main control means (main controller) for, by using information packaged data constructed by combining display data with appended data providing instructions for processing of displaying the display data, performing specified displaying operations in accordance with the appended data; and
a displaying means (displaying section) for displaying the display data.
In the foregoing, a preferable mode is one wherein the appended data is made up of operation commands which designate processing operations by command numbers, information about sound designation to designate displaying methods by sounds, information about numbers of times of repetition to designate the numbers of times of repetition of processing to be carried out in accordance with the above information packaged data and information about amounts of the appended data to designate amounts of the appended data providing instructions for processing of displaying the display data.
Also, a preferable mode is one wherein the appended data is made up of information about positions for displaying the display data on a screen of the portable cellular phone corresponding to amounts of the appended data, information about displaying timing showing a period of displaying the display data corresponding to amounts of the appended data and information about displaying showing contents of the display data corresponding to amounts of the appended data.
Also, a preferable mode is one that wherein includes a memory means made up of a fixed-type memory or a rewritable memory to store the information packaged data for each of the operation commands and wherein the main control means is constructed so as to read the information packaged data by the command numbers and to be able to use for processing of the display data.
Also, a preferable mode is one wherein the information packaged data is able to be fetched from other devices and/or other portable cellular phones using radio signals.
Also, a preferable mode is one wherein the information packaged data is able to be sent and/or received through external data input/output means.
Also, a preferable mode is one wherein the external data input/output means is a wireless-type data sending and receiving device.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for displaying image data in a portable cellular phone comprising:
a step of performing, by using information packaged data constructed by combining display data with appended data providing instructions for processing of displaying the display data, specified displaying operations in accordance with the appended data; and
a step of displaying the display data.
Also, according to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a program for causing a central processing unit to carry out display operations of the portable cellular phone, the program including:
a step of performing, by using information packaged data constructed by combining display data with appended data providing instructions for processing of displaying the display data, specified displaying operations in accordance with the appended data; and
a step of displaying the display data.
Further, according to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a storage medium storing a program for causing a central processing unit to carry out display operations of the portable cellular phone, the program comprising:
the step of performing, by using the information packaged data constructed by combining display data with appended data providing instructions for processing of displaying the display data, specified displaying operations in accordance with the appended data; and
the step of displaying the display data.
With the above configurations, since data to be displayed in a portable cellular phone is made packaged by combining with appended data adapted to provide instructions for processing of displaying the display data, only by designating a command number to specify information packaged data, a series of related processing can be carried out, thus enabling simplified control of operations and allowing software for displaying to be made shareable. Since the data required for displaying processing is made packaged, flexibility at a time of storing the display data in memory can be expanded, the information packaged data can be stored not only in a ROM (Read Only Memory) in a fixed manner but also in a RAM (Random Access Memory) in an arbitrary manner, the information packaged data can be easily fetched from information contained in radio signals or can be input through external data input/output devices.
With another configuration as above, since a partial image can be displayed by designating a display location, use of a whole screen is not required and an amount of memory to be used can be saved.
With still another configuration as above, since time for which one screen is being displayed or number of times of repetition of displaying operations can be arbitrarily designated, flexibility in displaying operations is increased and characters or images can be expressed more freely, thus providing effective image displaying performance.